Trash Mounts as Snow Melts

City Begins Spotty Pickup; Rat Warning

By

Michael Howard Saul

Updated Jan. 4, 2011 12:01 a.m. ET

The snow is sooo yesterday.

The city resumed limited garbage collection on Monday for the first time following the post-Christmas blizzard, but some elected officials and residents have already begun complaining that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration has allowed too much refuse to pile up.

On streets throughout the city, the mounds of snow have been replaced with mounds of garbage, creating a new highly visible eyesore for the mayor.

"Today we started an aggressive approach to try to clean up the waste that has built up over the last week due to the snow storm," said John Doherty, commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, at a news conference in Foley Square in Lower Manhattan.

"During the course of the week, as we make our rounds, some people will get two pick-ups where they normally receive three, and some other people may get either one or two pick-ups where they receive twice-a-week collection," he said.

Mr. Doherty said he hopes the city will be "pretty well normal" on garbage collection by week's end, and he noted that a week is the longest the city has ever gone without collecting garbage. The city won't resume recycling collection until the weekend, at the earliest, he said.

"We ask the public to please get their garbage out in an area where the sanitation workers can get it easily so that we can move along," he said. "We've got a lot of work out there."

The commissioner estimated there was probably a little less than 50,000 tons of garbage waiting to be collected. But the cold temperatures mean the mounds of garbage, though unsightly, shouldn't pose a major health risk, Mr. Doherty said.

Although the mayor has taken responsibility for the slow snow cleanup, calling it inadequate and unacceptable, Mr. Doherty continued to defend his employees. "From my point of view they did an A-plus. From the public's point of view, we did probably a C-minus," he said.

City Council Member Letitia James, chairwoman of the council's Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management, criticized Mr. Doherty for moving forward with limited garbage pick-up.

ENLARGE

A pile of trash sits on the curb outside an apartment complex in Queens on Sunday.
Ken Maldonado for The Wall Street Journal

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"Because the snow has melted thanks to Mother Nature," Ms. James said, "we should actually be doing full sanitation pick-up because the garbage here in central Brooklyn is mounting and we have rodent problems and raccoon problems."

In October, City Hall unveiled plans to demote 100 supervisors at the Department of Sanitation in hopes of saving money and boosting the number of sanitation workers available to pick up trash and plow snow. On Monday, Jason Post, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, confirmed that 55 of those possible demotions have been suspended.

"We are hopeful we can negotiate savings with the union," Mr. Post said. The other 45 have already been demoted.

These demotions fueled intense anger at the department. Both Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Doherty said they do not believe there was any deliberate effort by sanitation workers to botch the city's response to the blizzard, but the mayor has nevertheless ordered an investigation

Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the city's Department of Investigation, which is probing the possibility of a deliberate slowdown during the blizzard, said her agency has been working "24/7" on the probe.

The Sanitation Department has 400 fewer employees than it had two years ago. While the head of the sanitation union has suggested that the work force reduction contributed to the city's sluggish response to the storm, the mayor and Mr. Doherty have insisted that's not the case.

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